Report benefit fraud

The council relies on members of the public to pass on information concerning possible fraudulent benefit claims.

You can report a benefit cheat to us by:

Calling the South Oxfordshire District Council's confidential 24-hour benefit fraud hotline 0800 1695716. This number is manned during council office hours and is linked to an answer phone at all other times. All information is treated in confidence.

Calling the shared fraud hotline 0800 3286340. This freephone number is run by the Department for Works and Pensions on behalf of local authorities and operates from 8.30am till 6.30pm Monday to Friday, with lines staffed by operators from the National Benefit Fraud Hotline (NBFH). For people who are hard of hearing, there is a textphone number 0800 3286341.

Filling in the Report benefit fraud form which can be downloaded from the right of this page, and sending it to the Benefit Fraud Team (see address in Contact section of this page).

When reporting a suspected benefit cheat please give as much detail as possible to help us find the person and investigate them.

For example if you suspect someone is working and claiming benefits do you know what time they leave home for work or return home in the evening? Do they drive, do you know their car registration number, or the colour or make of the vehicle? If you cannot fill in all the details do not worry - any information you give can help us in our investigation.

It is important that the person we are asked to investigate is not inadvertently alerted to the fact we are looking into their circumstances and activities as they may hinder our inquiries.

You may remain anonymous when you report information to us although it would help our investigations if you could give your name and phone number in case we need more information from you. Any information you provide will be treated in the strictest confidence and we will not give your name to anyone else.

For reasons of confidentiality we will not be able to tell you the results of our investigation although we do publicise any benefit fraud cases on this website and in the local media.